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Insights from the Edge
February 16, 2016

Blueforce Development Corporation Endorses Kyocera’s Devices For Workers in Hazardous Locations and Jobs

by Michael Helfrich
in BlueBeacon, CBRN, Distributed Sensing, Emergency Notification, HAZLOC, K9, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

By John Chier, Director, Corporate Communications, Kyocera   At Kyocera, we believe that not all rugged devices are created equal. Our DNA is rooted in creating mobile devices that offer a unique blend of toughness, performance and affordability, and we feel we have a leg up when it comes to providing field workers the best durable mobile solutions. A big part of our success in rugged...

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February 7, 2016

A Primer on HAZLOC Certification: Not all Mobile Scenarios Require Intrinsically Safe Devices

by Michael Helfrich
in BlueBeacon, CBRN, HAZLOC, Intrinsically Safe, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Uncategorized

Blueforce Tactical and Blueforce BlueBeacon offer mobile teams an unprecedented level of shared situational awareness during lone worker, fire, hazmat, chemical, radiological, and explosives incident responses. While Blueforce manufactures best-in-class mobile software for deployed teams, these teams leverage smart devices upon which Blueforce software executes to take advantage of the fused sensing, location, and information sharing services that Blueforce software provides. While these types of...

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January 4, 2016

Combating Normalcy Bias through Training and Technology

by Michael Helfrich
in autonomous agents, BlueBeacon, Distributed Sensing, Emergency Notification, IoT, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Recovery, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

The beauty of being human is that most of us live our lives believing the best in others and that life will be normal and predictive. We expect that things are always orderly and too often, that events that suddenly break the mold of normalcy, aren't as bad as we might want to consider. Our brain is predisposed to assume that things will carry on...

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December 12, 2015

NYPD Transit Bureau Blazes the Path with Multi-Sensor Fusion using Blueforce with Working Dogs and Bomb Detection Teams

by Michael Helfrich
in autonomous agents, CBRN, Distributed Sensing, Fusion, K9, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Surveillance, Uncategorized, Wearables

The intelligence community has been warning for some time about “home made” explosive and chemical weapons, many of which can be fashioned from materials bought at Home Depot or the local pool supply store. Fast forward to Saturday March 14, 2015 when leaders in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq provided the Reuters news organization with soil and clothing samples taken by the peshmerga from...

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November 8, 2015

Shared Gesture-based Awareness and Command

by Michael Helfrich
in Distributed Sensing, IoT, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Sensors, Uncategorized, Wearables

Thalmic is developing a next generation armband for gesture detection that is full of motion and muscle sensors and can pickup on the “electrical activity in your muscles to wirelessly control” things via Bluetooth and applications like Blueforce Tactical. Blueforce sees great potential for this next generation of non-spoken command and control. While the applications for controlling other devices are endless, we think the opportunity...

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October 12, 2015

AUSA 2015 Washington: SCOTT Patriot 5510 and Blueforce Tactical on Display for Advanced CBRN Mitigation and Defeat

by Michael Helfrich
in CBRN, Distributed Sensing, Hybrid Life Support, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

Nothing is more frightening than asymmetric threats that involve the use of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents by non-nation state actors. Deployed tactical teams are increasingly being exposed to CBRN threats, including terrorist attacks with non-conventional means and where threats involve large quantities of toxic industrial chemicals, all posing severe hazards to deployed forces. A lack of warning and reaction time is a...

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September 25, 2015

CBRNE Sensing Platforms: Human, Animal, and Autonomous

by Michael Helfrich
in Distributed Sensing, Emergency Notification, Fusion, Hybrid Life Support, K9, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Surveillance, Uncategorized

Blueforce DC METRO Field Day is quickly approaching. No Powerpoint. No lectures. Just a day of "hands-on" with leading-edge emergency management, first responder, law enforcement, and counter-terrorism technologies. The event is sponsored by Blueforce Development, Tech Data, Sprint, and Mac Business Solutions. "Track 2" will feature “Sensing Platforms for WMD/CBRNE” and will demonstrate the latest in technology for mobile curtains of WMD sensing plus shared...

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September 12, 2015

Assured Disaster Communications: Blueforce TACPAC for Disaster Response

by Michael Helfrich
in Emergency Notification, Fusion, Recovery, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

You know it's bad when you are driving south against a 120-mile rolling backup of vehicles which are headed north.  There are fights at the gas stations.  When Blueforce was asked to pre-deploy with our emergency communications gear to Jefferson Parish in the hours before Hurricane Gustav was to come ashore, we beat the storm by a mere 60 minutes and bunked at a courthouse...

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September 9, 2015

Blueforce Field Day: DC Metro, 14 October 2015

by Michael Helfrich
in BlueBeacon, Distributed Sensing, Hybrid Life Support, Lone Worker, Occupational Safety, Sensors, Situational Awareness, Uncategorized

With a stated challenge by government officials in shortening what is known as the sensor-to-shooter cycle - the amount of time it takes from when a hostile threat is detected by a sensor - either human or electronic - and when it is attacked, Blueforce Tactical and emerging sensing platforms deliver a closed loop and rapidly adaptable hardware/software platform for real-time sensing leveraging already deployed...

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September 8, 2015

K9 In-Car Temperature Monitoring Sensor and Service BETA Testing Program Now Available

by Michael Helfrich
in Uncategorized

Blueforce Partners with flowthings.io and Senaya to Deliver a Life Saving Solution for Military and Police Working Dog Transportation Every year police and military working dogs die after being left in unattended and overheated vehicles. In almost every case, the handler was diligent in ensuring vehicle air conditioning was on, but engines are known to stop or overheat, which results in super-heated air being pushed into...

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